Report: Enhancing the Child Tax Credit helps lift kids out of poverty

Melissa Boteach, Vice President of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at Center for American Progress.

Washington, D.C. (Aug. 13, 2015) — A new Center for American Progress analysis underscores that the economic cost of child poverty in the United States is $672 billion per year, or nearly 4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.

This is due to higher health costs, lower educational outcomes, and increased spending on criminal justice. Additionally, flat or declining wages and rising costs are straining families’ ability to afford a middle-class lifestyle, with child-related costs accounting for nearly 70 percent of the middle-class squeeze for the typical two-parent, two-child family.

In its report, CAP introduces a new proposal to strengthen the Child Tax Credit, or CTC, to ease the financial strain of raising a child, cut child poverty, and reverse the upside-down tax code that favors the wealthy over low- and middle-income families. Columna disponible aquí.

“The average age to start a family comes decades before a worker’s peak earning years. As a result, young parents are often juggling student loans, spells of unemployment, and other financial shocks at the exact moment they are facing the new expenses and time constraints that a baby brings,” said Melissa Boteach, Vice President of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at CAP and a co-author of the report. “We know from an abundance of research that family income strongly affects children’s long-term success, including academic achievement, employment, earnings, and health. Our proposal both addresses families’ and children’s immediate needs and promotes families’ long-term strength and economic mobility.”

Enhancing the CTC

As a first step, Congress must make permanent key improvements to the CTC and Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC, slated to expire at the end of 2017. Failure to act would push nearly 8 million children into or more deeply into poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. CAP’s report outlines additional steps to strengthen the CTC by leveraging the credit as a tool to better invest in the next generation by:

Making the full CTC available to all low- and moderate-income families

Indexing the value of the CTC, which has lost $340 in value since 2001, to inflation

Introducing a new CTC supplement, called the Young Child Tax Credit, for families with children under 3 years old—$1,500 per child

Allowing families to receive the Young Child Tax Credit in monthly installments, rather than only at tax time, to address the urgent costs of new children

CAP’s analysis demonstrates that these new CTC policies can have a profound effect on reducing child poverty:

Lifting nearly two-and-a-half times as many children under 3 out of poverty as the current CTC

Nearly doubling the share of children under 17 lifted out of poverty by the CTC

Closing the poverty gap by one-quarter for kids younger than 3 who remain below the federal poverty line

Reducing racial and ethnic disparities in child poverty

Click here to explore an interactive on how these enhancements would reduce the child poverty gap—the amount by which children’s family income falls short of the federal poverty line—in each state and the District of Columbia. Many states would experience a large reduction in the depth of poverty for children under 17, including:

Hawaii: 25.4 percent

Vermont: 23.7 percent

New Hampshire: 23.4 percent

Mississippi: 22.9 percent

Montana: 22.8 percent

Iowa: 22.6 percent

New Jersey: 20.4 percent

North Dakota: 20.2 percent

West Virginia: 20.2 percent

Impact on communities of color

Click here to view, “CAP’s proposal to bolster the Child Tax Credit would help address the middle-class squeeze and cut poverty for all families while reducing racial and ethnic disparities” by Melissa Boteach. Disponible en español.

Given that African American and Hispanic families face higher rates of poverty and unemployment than white Americans, there are significant racial and ethnic disparities in who is excluded from the current CTC due to low income. Just more than one-fifth of all children under age 17 lived in families who earned too little to receive the full CTC in 2011, yet nearly 30 percent of Hispanic children and 38 percent of African American children lived in families that did not receive the full credit.

CAP’s proposed CTC enhancements would decrease poverty for children across the board and reduce the number of children younger than 3 who live in poverty by:

7.2 percent among white children

14.5 percent among black children

11.7 percent among Hispanic children

Read the full report, “Harnessing the Child Tax Credit as a Tool to Invest in the Next Generation,” online here, and the accompanying interactive, “Enhancing the Child Tax Credit Would Substantially Lessen the Depth of Child Poverty Across States,” online here.

The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all. We believe that Americans are bound together by a common commitment to these values and we aspire to ensure that our national policies reflect these values. We work to find progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and develop policy proposals that foster a government that is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”